


SHIELD

by Lasgalendil



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, He Chooses Bucky, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Past Character Death, Past Mind Control, Past Torture, Podfic Welcome, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers-centric, Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 02:12:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6781162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He lets the shield fall. He chooses Bucky.</p><p>...Because the only shield Steve Rogers has ever needed is the man held here in his arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	SHIELD

It was over. It was done.

One of his friends lay bleeding and broken on the floor, eyes wide in fear, in rage, in hate. And the other—? The other was _alive_. And in that moment Steve found that was all that mattered. Bucky blinked up at him, eyes glazed in pain and shock, a bloody boot print broken into the line of his nose, his jaw. But he was awake.

…he was alive.

Steve knelt, stretched out a hand, and Bucky took it.

 _And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul._ And yes, yes he had, he always had. Had loved Buck since before he knew what love was, had loved Buck when his world, his religion, his military told him it wasn't love, it was perversion, illness, sin. Had loved Buck waking in a world where he believed him dead. 

Steve raised Bucky to his feet, unsteady, unsure, but trusting, held fast against him. And yes. Here was the man Steve Rogers would die for. The man Steve Rogers _hadn’t_ killed for, because for so long Bucky had been denied that choice.

_“That shield doesn’t belong to you!”_

SHIELD. Peggy Carter. Bucky Barnes. The organization founded in his name by the woman he loved, the woman herself, and his childhood friend, soldier, brother, lover. Once upon a long time ago he’d picked up that shield, and he’d done so for Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

_“You don’t deserve that shield!”_

SHIELD was gone. Peggy Carter was dead and buried. But Bucky was here now. Bucky was _safe_. The shield, this thing, this weapon, in some ways even an extension of himself, was nothing, nothing in comparison to the warm man held next to him. Captain America could have one or the other, duty or loyalty, but not both.

_“My father made that shield!”_

And that was the moment Steve knew, knew for certain, that being a good man was more than being a perfect soldier, that honoring Abraham Erskine, honoring the memory of Peggy Carter didn’t mean a suit and shield. It meant staying Steve Rogers…and the only shield Steve Rogers had ever needed on God’s green earth was Bucky Barnes. In the end, it was hardly a choice. Or rather, one he’d made over seventy years before.

He let the shield fall.

“Oh, Buck,” Steve said as they staggered, an arm under those ruined, still sparking shoulders. “Your arm—“

“It was never my arm,” Bucky mumbled. “Why you smilin’ for?”

One heart. One flesh. One soul. For the first time in seventy years, Steve Rogers was whole. “It’s over,” Steve breathed. “It’s done.”

“It’ll never be over,” Bucky grimaced. “Steve, those people, they’ll—“

“I know they’ll hunt us, Buck. But Tony won’t.” And Tony Stark was alive, still alive, and Steve Rogers hadn’t killed him. A good man, Erskine had begged him. A good man.

“I’m sorry. I—I didn’t mean—I never wanted to hurt no one. An—and Howie—“

“I know, Buck. I know.”

“I never wanted to kill no one.”

“And you didn’t. When you had the choice—when it mattered—you _didn’t_ , Buck.”

_But I did it._

“But I’ve killed,” his teeth were clenched, head bowed in pain. “So many. Not just the S-soldier. Me.”

“Sergeant James Barnes, fightin’ for his country,” Steve had heard that voice, so different a voice, so long ago. “Expert in rifle, pistol, submachine gun and machine rifle. An extra f _ive whole dollars_ in my pocket every month, Stevie! You’re gonna be living like a king!”

“Oh, Buck…” Steve said. “Oh, Buck, no.”

“You, you wanted to enlist and I got the _draft_ —“

“It’s over, Buck," Steve gripped him tighter. "It’s over now. You won’t have to fight again. You’ll _never_ have to fight again. I swear.”

“Never felt right,” Bucky grunted in pain as the cold Siberian air caught them full force. “Fightin’ when it wasn’t for you.”

“You’re a punk."

“Aw, don’t be like that, doll,” Bucky coughed.

“Does it hurt?” Steve asked.

But Buck only gave a weepy smile. “Oh, Stevie,” he said, and let his head fall, nestled against Steve’s neck, over Steve’s heart, where he belonged. “It always hurt.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1 Samuel 18:1
> 
> Growing up before Vatican II, Steve would have most likely only heard or read this verse in Latin. I used the Douai-Rheims translation, as at the time it was the most widely used and accepted English-language Bible among traditional Catholics (I’m a protestant-raised Atheist, though, so if anyone has more or more accurate information, let me know!).
> 
> More about the differences between various English translations:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douay%E2%80%93Rheims_Bible#Challoner_Revision
> 
> For an interesting article on the explosion of 20th century Bible translations:
> 
> http://www.ajol.info/index.php/actat/article/viewFile/49018/35366


End file.
